Norway’s answer to Burt Bacharach

Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche played the show solo switching between acoustic and electric guitar. I was about 15 minutes late and he introduced his next song as something from “Faced Down,” a record he made “when he was a kid.” It was “No One’s Gonna Come.” It was interested to hear the stripped-down, skeleton version of the song.

Throughout his set, Lerche was able to perform his songs through augmented jazz chords, filling out the normally lush arrangements found on his albums. He’s really quite a master at his craft and has been compared to Burt Bacharach. You’d hardly guess that English was his second language because of the colorful metaphors in his lyrics.

The last two songs in his set were “Modern Nature” and “Sleep on Needles.” The crowd helped him out on the first track during the call and response parts of the duet that Lerche had to perform solo. I missed his encore song, but the echoes of Death Cab For Cutie’s music from the nearby stadium couldn’t sway the line of teenage girls waiting in line for his autograph.